Whom All Follow
by inwardtransience
Summary: When Heather Potter finally walked to her death, it came as something of a relief. But unnameable forces on the other side offer her a second chance at life, one she has hope can turn out much better than the first one. Brom, on the other hand, is getting far too old for this shit.
1. 1

Heather Potter gradually came to realise she still existed. Of course she must, if she were conscious enough to remark on her own existence — _cōgitō ergō sum_ , and all that. It wasn't just her thoughts, but she could feel her own body was a thing. Just the sense of it, the presence of her own flesh, but also that she was lying on some cool, hard surface. Which meant she _definitely_ still existed, if her body was still here.

The first thing Heather felt was a rush of disappointment.

A weird reaction, one would think, to the realisation that she wasn't dead. Or, if she _were_ dead, at least that she existed in some form. But she... She was done. She was just so tired. Honestly, when she'd brought Snape's memories to the pensieve, seen Dumbledore telling him that she had to die, mostly it'd just come as a relief. She'd been pushing for so hard, for so long, without the slightest reprieve, and it hurt so much, and she was _so tired_. The thought she could just...lie down, leave it to someone else— No, not even that, but that she _had_ to lie down, that she _had_ to be gone before someone else could properly kill the Dark Lord... Just a relief.

The thought had occurred to her, at the time, to wonder if she should feel guilty about that. But she hadn't, and she hadn't been able to bring herself to. They could do it without her — in fact, since she had to die, they _needed_ to do it without her. Since her death was necessary, she wasn't abandoning them. At least no more than she would have to either way. She was doing exactly what was needed of her.

And it was a relief.

But...she was still here.

Though, where _was_ she, exactly? It didn't feel like she was lying in the forest, not packed dirt but hard wood. It didn't sound like the forest — sounded rather like, well, nothing, the silence so complete her ears rang with it. She sat up, opened her eyes to look around. Everything was so _white_. The wood of the corridor, a mist clinging just above the ground, a slight glow in the air, obscuring her vision not far before her. Only that side of the corridor kept going, though, the end she was in was cut off, a few doors standing to her sides and back, glowing just as perfectly white.

She noted around then that was she was completely nude, but she just shrugged the observation off. She somehow doubted dead people really needed to wear clothes.

And then it wasn't so silent. Behind one of the doors, slightly muffled around the edge, she heard...something. It was a shuffling, a thumping, as though something tiny and weak pathetically struggling, a shrill, keening whine slithering across the air. Memories sparked lazily through Heather's head, and she shivered, reflexively wrapping her arms around her stomach. She knew what that was. She could only be glad the door was blocking her view. She had no desire to be any closer than she already was, certainly none to see the cursed thing.

'Heather.' She jumped at the voice, coming from further down the hall. Popping up to her feet, the skirt of her dress shifting about her legs, she turned back forward to see—

She felt her own face tilt into a weak glare. Of course _he_ would be here. Because she wasn't having enough fun already today.

Dumbledore gazed down at her with a bright, beatific smile on his face, arms spread wide in a gesture Heather would be unsurprised if he had copied from some religious artwork. Voice soft and warm, he said, 'You wonderful girl. You brave, brave—'

' _Shut up.'_ It came so sudden, so powerful, she couldn't control it. Rising in her chest, like a wildfire climbing a tree, crackling and spitting rage that slammed her throat closed before she could get anything else out, suddenly feeling hot, and tight, as though filled with too much... _something_ for her size. She fought to control herself, to regain her voice, even as she noticed little filaments spread out from her across the floor, veins of red and black stitched into the white grains, a few motes of the mist and light about her darkening. 'Shut. _Up_. You don't get to talk to me like that. You— You have _no right.'_

Her vision was a bit blurred, coloured at the edges with her barely-suppressed fury, but she saw the uncertain look take over Dumbledore's face, his head tilting somewhat. After a few seconds of silence, he said, 'Whatever have I done to deserve such enmity from you, Heather?'

For a second, she could only blankly stare at him. He was joking, right? 'In case you've forgotten, we did not exactly part on the best of terms. Not that we were ever got on as well as you liked to pretend. Is that something I have to look forward to in the afterlife? Forgetting basic facts of my own past?' She wouldn't exactly call that a bad thing, honestly.

A look of mild shock on his face, Dumbledore said, 'This isn't the afterlife, dear girl. My, what would give you that impression?'

This time, she found herself having to hold back a laugh. The black and the red singing around her, whispering and twittering, made it even harder. It seemed to think the question was just as ridiculous as she did. 'Oh, I don't know. I do seem to remember a blasting curse heading straight for my chest. That might have something to do with it.' Luckily, Voldemort hadn't played with her long before just killing her. A little bit, of course, but not _too_ much.

She could feel the memories shifting about in her head, but she shoved them back before they could grow too strong. She didn't want to be remembering that right now. Or ever, preferably.

Since she was _supposed_ to be dead, she really didn't feel that was too much to ask.

'A blas...' Somewhat to her surprise, Dumbledore's face paled, going even more unnaturally white than he'd been a second ago. A look of blank horror in his eyes, mouth opened with clear shock, he stared at her for a long moment, before finally managing, 'Ah, a _blasting_ curse? You're sure.'

'Pretty damn sure.' She had recognised it from the spellglow, but that wasn't entirely necessary — she _had_ felt the spell tearing her body apart, after all. Only for an instant, before everything had suddenly _stopped_ , and she was trying not to think about that, so the feeling was a bit fuzzy. But she remembered. It hadn't been pleasant.

'But, he...' Dumbledore's legs quite suddenly failed him, a chair that hadn't been there a second ago, much as the dress she was wearing had seemingly appeared from nowhere, catching him before he could fall to the ground. He sat there, silent, eyes staring unfocused at nothing, a shaky hand raising to his brow. 'He... He was supposed to use the _Killing_ Curse, that...'

Heather hadn't really been paying much attention to him, instead watching the red and black whatever it was surrounding her. It hadn't faded with her anger — well, she was still angry, sure, but she was mostly calm again — but lingered, curling about her ankles with a soft, tickling touch, blowing gently at her hair, whispers in her ears so quiet she couldn't understand what it was saying, could barely pick the voice out, but it still sounded oddly familiar. It was weird. But she was yanked back, frowning down at the infuriating old man. 'What the bloody hell are you talking about?'

'I– You have to understand, it was simply a theory, there would be no way to test it of course, but...' Dumbledore's hand dropped, his eyes again raising to meet hers. She was a little surprised to notice the beginnings of tears in them. 'There is never only one way to do anything, Heather. There is more than one way to tie a soul to the living realm. When Tom used your blood in his resurrection—' Heather flinched at the memory. '—he took a part of your mother's protective magic into himself, infused it with such power and life that— You were supposed to survive. But, but if your body is too damaged, your soul will not be able to re-inhabit it. I am sorry, my dear girl, I didn't think—'

'You're fucking kidding me.' Dumbledore's eyes widened, probably at the flat disdain on Heather's voice, but she ignored that. 'Just because there are no _external_ signs of damage doesn't mean a person can be revived. I mean, if I had been hit with the Killing Curse instead, and I got to go back and try to _re-inhabit_ my body, is that just supposed to ignore the catastrophic nerve damage that killed me?' She shook her head to herself, muttered under her breath, 'Bloody idiot, honestly.'

'Catastrophic nerve damage?' He actually looked confused, imagine that.

That only made her more annoyed, of course. The red and the black around her whispered at her, told her she _should_ be annoyed, that this man, this man who was _supposed_ to be responsible for her, who was _supposed_ to provide for her safety and well-being, had failed to fulfill his mandate every step of the way. Failed, spectacularly. But, really, Heather found it hard to summon the will to care enough to get too angry. A little angry, sure, but not a lot. 'Yeah. How else did you think it kills people?'

'I... I've read of soul magic, and the severing of the spirit's connection to—'

Heather stopped listening, just shook her head to herself. Of course, it _did_ do that, but severing a person's soul from their body involved a crazy amount of energy — there was a reason the curse was so hard to cast — funnelled very tightly into very sensitive places. It did leave damage behind, damage that could not be repaired by any known means.

She was seventeen, had only passing familiarity with soul magic, and _she_ knew this. What was his excuse?

'Why are you even here?' Dumbledore cut off in his ramble, by how he blinked up at her only realising then she hadn't actually been listening. But then, he never really did seem to pay that much attention to her, did he? 'Where is this? Why do I—? I just want to...'

She didn't want to deal with this.

She didn't want to deal with anything.

 _You shouldn't have had to deal with any of it_.

Heather blinked, glanced at the tendrils of thick, red-black not-light floating about her, twisting and curling. That was one of the voices inside, the first one that actually came out as coherent English. Whatever it was, it was talking to her, not in audible whispers, but slithering right into her thoughts. The sensation wasn't exactly unpleasant, but it _was_ strange.

 _You have been betrayed by those who should have cared for you._

 _You have been wronged by those who should have known better._

 _It is not right._

 _You are powerful._

 _You are beautiful._

 _You never got to find it._

 _You never came to truly understand._

 _You were broken so young—_

 _So young..._

— _and you were never allowed to heal._

 _We don't like that. We think it is wrong._

 _Wrong, wrong to leave such potential unexpressed._

 _Wrong to keep such power tied to the ground, not allowed to spread its wings._

 _Wrong._

 _Injustice._

 _Betrayal._

Fate. Heather just shrugged back at the whispers, despite how the giddy feeling they brought with them, a dark, reckless humour, was bringing a smile to her face. What was to be done about it? It was passed and gone. Fate had fallen as it had. There was nothing to be done. She had long ago accepted it was her lot in life.

In the next seconds, the way it contorted about her, shivering in the air, its presence in her mind light and bouncing, she would say the not-light was chuckling at her.

 _So much yet to learn, child._

 _Fate is but a song, a subtle melody at the centre of reality._

 _Those who can hear it can learn to sing._

 _And the song can be changed._

 _Fate is not absolute. Not immutable._

 _Nothing is unchanging, change is the way of existence._

 _And so fate can be changed._

 _This need not be the end._

Her lips still twitching with the not-light's warm amusement, Heather's eyes nonetheless narrowed with a frown. She didn't understand. Were they saying she could go back?

 _No, not back. What is done is set._

 _Though fate can be sung, once events have occurred, they are immutable._

 _It is only that which has yet to come which can be changed._

 _But reality is more than you realise._

 _And we are more powerful than you can imagine._

 _We wish to see your power grow._

 _We wish to hear your song be sung._

 _We wish to watch you soar free._

 _Your wings have been shattered, yes, you cannot go back to the life you knew._

 _But why would you want to? Honestly, now._

Heather chuckled under her breath a little. It had a point.

 _But while your spirit remains, it can grow wings anew._

 _You can live again. Not as you were before._

 _Someone different._

 _New._

 _Powerful._

 _Beautiful._

 _Eternal._

 _We can make it so._

 _You have earned our favour, Heather Potter._

 _But the spectacle was disappointingly brief. We wish to see more._

 _We can give you, as the silly old man would say, your next great adventure._

 _Only say the word, and a new life will be yours._

Why were they doing this? Was this an offer that was made often? She couldn't imagine it was...

 _Not often, no. But sometimes._

 _Though you are different. We know it, even if you don't._

 _But this isn't itself unusual. You would not be the first we have intercepted._

 _People of exceptional will, of powerful personality, enough that we are intrigued._

 _When such songs are suffocated before their natural end, sometimes we act._

 _Not always. Sometimes, they refuse._

 _It is disappointing, but understandable._

 _Such people are crushed under such terrible weight they are too severely broken._

 _They wish only to pass into their eternal rest._

 _It may be disappointing, but we do not begrudge them that._

 _And still we offer. And still we wait._

She frowned at the lights around her for a long moment, thinking. Was she tired? Yes, of course she was. She was exhausted. But, she was exhausted because of the situation she'd been stuck in. She was exhausted of being Heather Potter, of there being no end in sight, exhausted of the constant isolation, and expectations, and agony. If she were no longer Heather Potter, not really, would she still be exhausted? Would she still wish for it to just end, whatever it took, just so she could truly rest?

No. No, she didn't think she would.

Because she was beautiful and powerful. She wasn't so ignorant of her own magic to not realise she was something special. Not entirely sure what, but _something_. But she was so... She had never gotten to spread her wings, as the whispers had put it.

She thought she would rather like to. If only to see what she could do, when she wasn't held back.

But that was an if. _If_ she weren't held back. If this new life she was being offered was significantly easier than the one she'd been stuck with. Would she be happy? She had to know that first. It wouldn't be worth it if she wasn't going to be happy. She'd had enough of being miserable already, she thought.

 _Yes._

 _Though not without complications._

 _There are simpler lives. And there are easier ones._

 _It will take effort to secure your place in your new world. That is for sure._

 _But would you truly wish it any other way? How else will you find how far your wings can carry you, if you aren't forced to fly?_

 _But you will not be given more than you can bear. Not this time._

 _There may come a time when things may seem hopeless._

 _But we know what you are. Even if you don't._

 _None can flee from you forever._

 _You will always win in the end._

 _For your wrath when purely expressed is beautiful and terrible._

 _No matter how powerful he may seem, he is weak where it matters._

 _And it will be your accomplishment when he falls. Yours and yours alone._

 _No one will be able to claim you do not deserve your victory._

 _And your song will inspire others, lift up voices that would otherwise have been silenced._

 _And you will not be alone._

 _There will be family. Friends. Lovers._

 _You will not be alone._

 _You will not be alone._

 _You will be powerful._

 _You will be beautiful._

 _You will be eternal._

 _And you will be happy._

 _We promise you, you will not regret it._

Well. She really couldn't imagine what else she could possibly say to that. The not-light's presence in her mind was still making her feel a bit giddy, which might be interfering somewhat with her decision-making process. But all she could do was smile at the dark radiance about her. 'Sure. I'll go.'

'Heather? You'll go where?' It was only then she even remembered Dumbledore was there. He had climbed out of his chair, had walked partway over to her, looking on the red-blackness around her with clear suspicion. 'What _is_ this?'

Still smiling, she said, 'They're taking me on a trip. My next great adventure, as you call it.'

'They? Heather, my girl, I don't know what this is, but...' Frowning, he shook his head to himself, unease very obvious about him. 'There's something wrong about it. I have never seen anything like it, but if one thing is sure, it is not of the Light.'

'If there is one thing you have taught me, Headmaster, it is that Light is not always good.'

Before Dumbledore could say anything — and it did look like he was about to, his face turning thunderous, shoulders rising — the not-light quivered, tensed, then lashed out, pushing away from her in an inexorable wave. In a blink, before she could even pick out what was happening, the white hallway was gone, Dumbledore vanished, and the not-light was all there was. Incandescent blacks and moody reds, comfortably soft and soothingly warm, gently caressing her bare skin. For she was, she noticed, quite suddenly naked again, not that she found she really cared. The not-light felt too good, slipping all over and through her, filled with adoration and hope and happiness and life.

Not that she was really sure what she meant by that. Despite Dumbledore's initial protest, this was clearly the afterlife. She'd be more surprised if it _did_ make total sense.

The whispers were back, and she was a little surprised to note a slight note of righteous fury on their not-voices. It didn't taint the gentle warmth about her, almost seemingly to close about her, as though protecting her from further harm.

 _That silly wraith._

 _That empty man._

 _He has no idea who we are._

 _He has no idea who you are._

 _The arrogance of mortals never ceases to astound us._

 _But this is not the time to talk of that, no._

 _It is time to send you on your way._

 _Good luck, Heather Potter._

 _We will be watching._

Then the incandescent blackness and gentle redness were moving. Twisting about her in a tempestuous, uncontainable storm, slicing through her skin and mind, all she was, and the agony pounded through her white and violet, but she couldn't scream, she didn't have a throat anymore, but she could still feel herself moving, falling from an impossible height, the contorting currents of magic thrusting her down, down, and she was _dizzy_ , and she _hurt_ , and the only thing she could think through the pain and confusion was maybe that _hadn't_ been a very good—

With a sudden slam she felt all through her being, thoughts spinning and magic thrashing, Heather was dropped solid onto her back, the blankets tangling around her limbs as she flailed. Her breath was harsh and hot and dry in her throat, loud and fast in her ears, but that wasn't the worst of it, no, she could feel her magic crackling around her, setting the air to glowing and sparking, the wood groaning. She grit her teeth, tried to yank it back into herself, but it wasn't listening, it was too raw, too inflamed from...whatever exactly had just happened. But she _had_ to get it under control, she could hurt Mom and Dad on accident if she didn't, and even if they _were_ okay she wasn't supposed to be magic, they wouldn't know what to do.

Before they could wake up all the way, Heather cast a thought out to her wildly writhing magic, ordering it to obey her will, telling it to make Mom and Dad _sleep_. It hesitated, just for an instant, but then a small fraction of it turned about, falling on the shifting figures next to her, and they were still again, forced back under. Heather slid across the rough surface of the bed, popped over the foot, her bare feet coming with an almost inaudible thud against the wood floor. On instinct, she walked through the little house, slipping out the door.

Heather took in a hard breath as winter chill snapped at her legs and arms and neck — holy _fuck_ it was cold! It was almost spring, she _knew_ it was, but for some reason it was _really fucking cold_ , she doubted it ever got colder than this even around Hogwarts. Since her magic was refusing to stay inside her body anyway, Heather told it to keep her warm, and it did, a soothing blanket of hot, soft air wrapping about her, the shivering that had already taken over her limbs instantly ceasing. She stepped off the rickety little wooden porch, sublimating the snow away before she stepped on it, walked a short distance from the house.

Then she crouched, low to the hard winter dirt, wrapping her arms about her knees. She tried, she _tried_ , she tried to bring her magic in, to pull it back inside her body where it belonged, but it _wasn't listening_ , it kept snapping and screaming around her, it didn't seem to want to come back even a little bit. But she concentrated, her face falling into an almost painfully severe grimace, yanking it back, as hard as she could, yanking, yanking, yanking.

And then she stopped, a soft yelp passing her lips, as her skin _burned_. Her own magic had hurt her! But that didn't make _sense_ , her own magic _couldn't_ hurt her! It was impossible! It was almost like...

It was...

It was almost like _her body couldn't hold it anymore_.

And then she understood, in the blink of an eye. She was in a different world. The whispers had said that, just short of explicitly. Magic here worked differently. The laws, the science of magic, the exact rules by which it operated by weren't _quite_ exactly the same.

For whatever reason, her body couldn't hold her magic. Maybe mages here didn't work the same way, maybe people were biologically different here, less tolerant of high concentrations of magic. But, her magic had come _with_ her, and it wouldn't go away. She knew it wouldn't. No matter how much her body might not be compatible with it, it was still part of her, connected to her, bound to her mind and soul. So, she'd have to do _something_ with it.

Since she couldn't think of anything else to do, she pulled her magic inward, willing it to wrap around her, close against her skin. It resisted a bit — it wanted to be free, wanted to slash, and burn, and brighten the world around her — but she gave the air a scolding glare, dug in her heels. _No_ , it was _her_ magic, it would _do what she told it to_. Reluctantly, petulantly, the unleashed energy slowly coiled about her, coming to rest as a glowing, shimmering halo, covering her head to toe, extending just a couple inches into her surroundings.

She loosened her hold on her magic, just a little, to see if it were stable. Not entirely, she didn't think, a few wisps of power slithered off, floating about her, like hundreds of little comets. But it mostly stayed, and even the stuff that did stretch out a little was calmed, settling into regular orbits. Good, then. If she went in now, she wouldn't be breaking anything, or accidentally hurting her...

Heather blinked, straightened from where she was kneeling in the dirt, turned to look over her shoulder. The tiny little farmhouse looked entirely unremarkable, featureless in the washed colours of the winter night. But she wasn't looking, not exactly, instead thinking of what was _inside_ that tiny little farmhouse.

Her _family_.

She...

Her name was Ithera. She was... Well, she wasn't sure how old she was exactly — from what she could tell, the people in the Valley here didn't keep a precise calendar, so they didn't really have birthdays. Everyone was considered a year older at this harvest festival they had, it was this whole thing. Ithera would say she was seven, but Heather was pretty sure she was actually six. She was momentarily surprised to realise she was so young, but she really shouldn't have been. Her feet had been strangely silent on the floors, and she felt a bit...slighter.

And, of course, a quick check with her hands confirmed her tits were gone. So there was that.

She knew, Ithera had known since she was old enough to understand, that her parents weren't _really_ her parents. Marian and Garrow were her aunt and uncle, technically — Garrow was her mother's brother. Her mother had died shortly after she'd been born, she didn't remember her, and nobody had any idea who her father was. She knew they weren't her real parents, but she'd always called them Mom and Dad anyway. The explanation of the whole thing, a couple years ago, hadn't even come with the expectation she would stop calling them that. It was just to preemptively explain things people in the village, a mile or two north of here, might say to her, so she wouldn't get confused. They had a son of their own, a couple years older than Ithera, named Roran. They were technically cousins, yes, but they thought of each other as siblings, always had. Roran was older than her by little enough he couldn't remember Ithera not being there.

That was slightly odd, when Heather thought about it. It would be typical in a preindustrial society, as Ithera's memories made very clear this was, for farmers to have several children, to help with the work. (Or if only due to the lack of birth control.) In fact, reading between the lines, the family was struggling rather badly, Garrow and Marian, with the little Roran and Ithera could do, barely able to maintain the farm to satisfaction, keep them all alive. They _could_ eat, yes, but they had hardly any left over to trade for anything else they might need. It was a razor thin edge they lived on. Slightly odd. By some of the issues Ithera had _barely_ noticed, it looked like Marian might have some kind of health problem. It limited a bit what she could do around the farm to contribute, and was probably why Ithera didn't have more siblings.

Maybe Heather should look into that. She was hardly a licensed Healer but, who knows? She could get lucky.

She had a _family_.

The thought was...

She was disoriented after a moment of bewilderment by a dizzying wash of jealousy. She couldn't help it, it just happened. Here Ithera had been, growing up with an aunt and uncle and cousin. And they were _nice_ to her. Garrow was somewhat gruff and distant, yes, Roran did sometimes play a bit rough with her. But... But they _loved_ her. She could tell. She couldn't help it.

And then she laughed at herself a second later. She was being jealous _of herself!_ That was so silly! Because, yes, she _could_ remember growing up with the Dursleys. Those memories hadn't gone away. But she could _also_ remember growing up with... Er, it seemed these people didn't have the concept of a surname. With her family, anyway. They were no different. She had _more_ memories as Heather, Heather had been older. But her Ithera memories didn't seem...tacked on, or something. They were part of her too, just the same as any others.

Actually, it was sort of weird. She _knew_ the whispers hadn't sent her here until just now, she _knew_ her Heatherness hadn't appeared until just a few minutes ago. But there wasn't a... There wasn't like, a break, a discontinuity, when Heather took over Ithera...or...whatever was going on here...

She meant, it didn't _feel_ any different. She remembered what she'd done as Ithera yesterday, and the day before, and so on. And she remembered what she'd done as Heather yesterday ( _don't think about that_ ), and the day before, and so on. They both seemed just as real. Was she Heather or Ithera? Both? Neither? It was weird.

At least, she didn't _think_ she'd stolen a six-year-old girl's body. It felt no different than if she'd been here the whole time. Though, since she _hadn't_ been here the whole time, what exactly had Ithera been before she—

You know what, no, stop it. There was no point in thinking about that too much. There was no real way to get answers, and it was just too weird.

Heather flopped over onto her back, another quick warming charm banishing the chill from the frozen dirt, staring up at the sky above her. And, come to think of it, wasn't magic weirdly easy all of a sudden? She guessed since her magic had to stay outside of her body it was easier to push it out, that made complete sense. As long as they were spells that were easy to conceptualise, anyway. If she wanted to do any _complicated_ magic, specific charms with precise effects, she'd have to be very careful, or probably get a focus of some kind. Ithera knew there were other magicians out there. They were very rare, however, so it might be difficult to find stuff to make magic easier, but not impossible.

It was sort of confusing, in her head right now. She knew she was a witch, she'd known it for nearly seven whole years now. If anything she was just slightly relieved she didn't necessarily need her wand — protecting herself if another mage came along might be complicated, which was making her slightly uneasy, but the chances of that out here were pretty much nill, she was fine. But part of her was absolutely _giddy_. She was _magic!_ That was awesome! She was almost vibrating in place with excitement, it was _so cool_ , half-tempted to jump to her feet and dance around in the snow, throwing magic all around just because, because she was a magician, and she _could_. But that was silly. Of course she was magic. There was nothing to get all weird over about that.

Heather let in and out a long breath, rubbing at her face with both hands. Hopefully this kind of thing wouldn't come up too much. Her two sets of memories bringing her to two completely different reactions to the same thing at the same time was _very_ confusing.

There were a few clouds in the sky, she could tell only by the patches of absolute blackness, but there were still enough stars visible to confirm it. Yep, this wasn't Earth. After as many years as she'd spent in Astronomy, she should be able to recognise the sky even in the southern hemisphere — this was completely unfamiliar.

Not that she had _that_ great an idea exactly where she was. Her home was just a mile or two south of Carvahall, a tiny little village in a place called Palancar Valley, a long, narrow strip of land split by a river called the Anora between the rocky, heavily forested mountains called the Spine. Apparently, the range as a whole was called that because they were sort of shaped like a person's spine, without the squishy parts, but Ithera had never seen a map, so she couldn't say for sure. Rather far toward the northern end of the mountain range — from what she could tell, she lived at pretty much the fringe of civilisation, far out in the frontier. The nearest city of any real weight was Ceunon, but Ithera didn't really know anything about it, she'd never been there. Ithera had never been out of the Valley, in fact.

Ceunon was the capital of the duchy she was in, though, which was called... Um, she couldn't remember. Sounded maybe kinda elf-y? Whatever. That was part of Brodhring, though. The people were called Brodhern, Ithera was Brodhr, and the language was called Brodhrish.

...

Apparently, she'd magically learned how to speak another language while she was being quasi-reborn in another world. Or...Heather's memories being plopped in her head had taken English with them — along with the tiny bit of French she'd managed to pick up, barely any. She honestly had no idea which way of putting it made more sense.

Of course, she did actually speak English better than Brodhrish. She had a seventeen-year-old's competence with English, but Ithera was only _six_. It made sense she wouldn't speak her language nearly as well as Heather could hers. Which she was pretty sure was going to be mortifying. Her knowledge may be incomplete, but she knew well enough she was still going to be talking like a child, and...that was just going to be awkward. Her intelligence she'd inherited from seventeen-year-old Heather was going to make that unpleasant. Oh well, she'd probably be able to pick up on it quicker than Ithera would alone, it wouldn't be very long.

Though, come to think of it, she'd have to pretend to keep thinking like a six-year-old. It'd probably creep people out if she didn't.

Most of the time, she'd only have to fool her family. She didn't see other people very often. And since she remembered how Ithera acted around them, it shouldn't be hard. Of course it shouldn't, she _was_ Ithera, technically. Her Ithera reactions should still be there. She'd just have to...not overthink it, she guessed. Shouldn't be too hard.

Ithera yawned, her hand coming to her mouth. She was sleepy. She had just woken up, in the middle of the night, and then had to force her magic down, and that had been exhausting, and she was sleepy. She should go back to bed soon.

What exactly should she be doing with herself, the next few days, weeks? Part of her felt slightly antsy, like she had to... _move_ , do _something_. But, that was from Heather's life, she knew that. She'd been on the move so much, she'd had things to do, big important things. But...Ithera _didn't_ have things to do. She was just a six-year-old farmgirl. And it was winter, so there were barely any chores to do, even. And even if she were to do things, what could she do? She was six! She was being silly.

Maybe she should find time to sneak off and play with her magic though. Experiment, she meant, not play. It was very possible other things were different with how magic worked, and she should figure out exactly what before she really needed it. She'd hate to be stuck in a dangerous situation, something, and suddenly realise her magic wasn't acting like it should. That would be bad.

Okay, she was mostly just going to be playing with it. She did have good reasons, though! Not entirely pure, but still...

Other than that she should just...go along like she had been, and try to get used to being...whoever she was now. She wasn't exactly Heather, and not exactly Ithera. It was really bloody confusing. It was weird, it would take some getting used to. Especially since Heather had been _really_ fucked up. Looking back on some of her own memories made her shiver, and not because she was cold. Her magic was taking care of that. Thank you, magic.

Maybe she could magic the bad memories away. Well, she could, actually, she knew a spell for that. But, that was probably a bad idea. That kind of spell required very tight, precise control, and she did _not_ trust her ability to do that without a wand. Especially not when she wasn't sure how different magic was here. Yeah, she would just, _not_ do that. She would rather deal with unpleasant memories than accidentally drive herself completely insane, thanks.

Ithera yawned again. Fuck, she was tired. She felt she had _reason_ to be tired. It was the middle of the night, and she had just died and come back to life. Sort of. It was complicated. She'd be going back to bed, then.

She pushed herself to her feet, a little unsteadily, dizzy with sleepiness. She walked back to the porch, was inside a second later, pausing to make sure the door closed firmly — it got cold enough in here even when the door _didn't_ stick open. Then she started on her way back to her room, yawning again, already half-asleep on her—

Heather froze, a shiver of unease slithering along her limbs. Ithera didn't _have_ a room. She probably would, soon. The room was already there, but it was mostly empty. When the Traders came, in a month or two now, Mom and Dad were going to pick up a few things in town, and then she'd be able to actually sleep there. Ithera slept with Mom and Dad, always had. Actually, she'd been very conflicted about getting her own room, she didn't like sleeping alone.

But... Heather _always_ slept alone. Even with Luna, she could barely sleep at all if Luna were with her, she always had to ask her to stay as far away as possible. She didn't know why. She would think she'd be comfortable enough with _Luna_ of all people, at least. It just...bothered her.

But there really wasn't anywhere else to sleep. And part of her, the part of her rising from the Ithera memories, a part of her didn't even want to try. That was where she always slept. Why would she want to go anywhere else?

Heather grit her teeth, trying to force down her unease, and started again for her parents' bedroom. She could always use a sleeping charm on herself if she had to.

Walking into the room, closing the door behind her, she was mostly calm again. Still not exactly happy with the situation, but still. Dad was definitely still asleep, he was snoring a little, but Mum wasn't making any noise. Just to be sure, Heather silenced her feet quick, then padded over to the bed, climbed back on at the foot. Trying to not be uncomfortable, she crawled over the blankets, then wiggled her way back into place. Which was slightly awkward, trying to get back under the blankets without shoving them off Mum and Dad, but she managed it.

And then she lay there, rigid on her back, desperately trying not to be too uncomfortable. She was sleepy enough she knew she'd drift off eventually, but she would _have_ to get used to this...

There was a soft taking in of breath from next to her ear, almost making Ithera jump. After the shortest moment, there was a whisper, in a soft, warm voice, just barely inches away. "Ithera? Is something wrong?"

Heather was temporarily distracted hearing Brodhrish for the first time. Technically, sort of. It sounded vaguely like Swedish to her. A little. The sounds and the accent, anyway, she would have no idea if the words were at all similar, she didn't speak Swedish. Forcing calm into her voice, Ithera said, "I'm fine, Mom."

For the barest second, there was only silence, and Heather was worried Marian, Mum, whatever, she was worried she wasn't going to believe her. But then she let out a hum, the breath of her sigh playing against Heather's shoulder. All right. Good. She was—

She barely managed to stop herself from yelping when Mum suddenly grabbed her. Not harshly, sure, she wasn't hurting her, it was just...sudden. Heather wasn't used to this...being touched...stuff. And then Mum was pulling her in, all soft and gentle, Heather's face coming in against the smooth cloth over her chest, and she had one hand low on her back and the other in her hair, and Heather tensed, eyes squeezed tight and throat clenched against her breath, hands unconsciously clenching in Mom's nightdress. Burying with everything she had the urge to flinch, to pull away, to shove Marian off of her, not entirely managing to repress an unpleasant shiver.

Hissed into her hair, Mom whispered, "Nightmares again?"

Despite herself, she felt the tension in her face, in her fingers, slightly relax. That was one way of putting it. From a certain point of view, she'd just had a seventeen-year-long nightmare — the word fit very well to Heather's life. Ithera had had nightmares sometimes, it'd been a problem for a while some months ago, but nothing like this, Heather's memories were _so_ many times worse than anything a child's wandering mind could come up with.

She hadn't meant to. Not really. She was sleepy, and she was uncomfortable, and she was distracted, and she lost the rigid control she had on her own thoughts. Flashing before her eyes, she saw what had happened...well, earlier today, in a way, from Heather's point of view. Curses flashing back and forth, the air crackling with deadly magics, dementors and acromantulae and trolls and giants. Screaming and pain and blood. People she knew, friends and family, dying one after another after another. She saw Tracey take a cutting curse in the small of her back, she saw Tonks, after a terrifyingly intense fight with an entire pack of Death Eaters, vanish under a rain of spellglows, she saw Sirius struck with a blood-boiling curse, and Heather had been there, she'd _tried_ to counter it, but it _wasn't working_...

And then, Luna...

If she were entirely awake, she would have been able to swallow it down. If she were entirely Heather, she probably would have. But she wasn't. She had a bloody six-year-old brain, and she couldn't stop it, it was forcing itself up too hard and too fast, her chest and throat filling with a hot tightness she couldn't control, and crying was dangerous, she knew crying was dangerous, but she _couldn't stop_ , it wasn't staying down, and she couldn't help cringing away a little from the woman holding her, something small and vulnerable in the back of her head _certain_ she was going to be punished, she couldn't help it, she—

But Mom's arms just tightened around her. Holding her closer, strong and soft and warm and oh so gentle. And Heather couldn't. This was entirely foreign to her. She had absolutely no idea how to handle this. She could tell she was still a little terrified, she still kind of wanted to escape, an instinctive impulse, but even so it was... She couldn't...

It was nice.

Ithera had no idea how much later it was she finally cried herself to sleep in her mother's arms.

* * *

 _Originally posted in "Back Burner" some time ago. Further notes at the end of chapter three._


	2. 2

She woke in the morning still tired, body so heavy it hurt to move. Like she somehow hadn't slept enough, nowhere near enough. But she forced herself up anyway. Heather had long grown accustomed to pushing herself when she was long past the point of wishing to collapse, when the exhaustion had already turned bone-deep. She'd learnt to take it, embrace it, pull it under her skin until it became who she was, she endured not with any real energy or strength of her own, but out of sheer, bull-headed _refusal_ to surrender, to be seen weak. First by her shite, sick excuse for a family, then all those faceless masses of idiot mages. No, she wouldn't let them see her weak, she wouldn't, so she learned to go through the motions even when she was thoroughly dead inside.

She wasn't even done dressing for the day when something happened that had never happened before. She… She _cared_. She _cared_ that she'd always had to do that. That her shit life had forced her into a situation where she _had_ to learn how to do that. That her family had treated her so cruelly, that people who were supposed to take care of her not only continually failed, but were more often than not the cause of her suffering. For Heather, that had simply been the way of the world. It had always been that way, she'd always been on her own. She'd never questioned it, just bore it.

But Ithera _hadn't_. The part of her that was Ithera knew that, remembered that, and was horrified. That anyone had treated her that way… It was awful. It left her hurt, and furious, and unbearably sad, but there was nothing she could do. Which just made it worse.

Mom had asked her why she was crying, but she'd just brushed it off, not at all sure what she could possibly say.

Before following Mom to help with breakfast — she was expected to help a little, even though at her age she really didn't contribute much anyway — she'd slipped away a moment, to catch a glimpse of herself in Mom's mirror. (She didn't often use the thing, she had little need to, but it was one of the few things she had of her own mother, so she kept it.) Ithera had been caught making faces at herself more than once, which is probably what anyone would assume she was doing if they caught her. Really, Heather was familiarising herself with her new face.

The instant she saw herself, she thought she might cry. Her eyes, they were…

 _Luna_.

They didn't look exactly like hers, of course. They were a bright, almost glowing steel grey, yes, but not quite the silver of Luna's. But even so, they were similar enough the memories assaulted her in a flood, it was only _yesterday_ , and she was seeing it happen all over again, over and over behind her eyes, and Heather had to wipe the tears away, take long moments to compose herself before she could look again.

She did look rather a lot like Dad, come to think of it, close enough it wouldn't be unreasonable for someone to think she was his real daughter. She knew she wasn't, though, Dad just looked enough like her real mother, his sister, that it was noticeable. He had almost the same exact gray eyes, pretty close to the same hair color too. Ithera had always liked her hair. It was like that scraggly dirty blond a lot of people had, brown and yellow mixed together, but the light part wasn't actually yellow. It was a far lighter shade, looking just a bit off of white, like the pale underside of a rabbit, pure and bright. She'd always liked it.

Brom, the old storyteller, had said the Brodhern royal family, back when their people had first travelled to this land, had been known for their white-blond hair. That dynasty had died centuries ago, yes, but silver hair like hers was said to be a mark of one of their descendents, a lingering touch of the blood of kings. It somewhat unpleasantly reminded Heather of Malfoy, but the shade was different enough, broken enough by the splashes of light brown, that it didn't bother her too much, Ithera's appreciation overpowering the feeling after short seconds.

Her face was different though. Her cheeks were a bit rounder than Dad's — which could just be because she was a child and a girl, but she didn't think so — and her nose and her chin were entirely different. Because her real mother had looked a bit different than Dad, or from her real father? She didn't know, she'd never met either. Whatever, not that important.

After a while staring at herself in the mirror, she decided Heather had been prettier. Or, at least, she _thought_ Heather had been prettier — it was hard to say for certain, since Ithera was only six, and Heather had always been thinner than was entirely healthy. She thought so, though. Not that she really cared. She didn't need to be a great beauty, not that she would care to put in the effort to truly take advantage of it, and it wasn't like she was ugly either. Homely was sufficient. She'd always been the type to _do_ things, not just sit somewhere and look pretty. Everything in her short life so far pointed to Ithera being much the same. So, the mild hit to her looks was a disappointment, but not a major one.

And one she entirely forgot once she ran off to join Mom, and remembered she was apparently living in the goddamn dark ages. While rendering the pathetic little aid she usually did when Mom was preparing breakfast, Heather's many countless hours of experience cooking countless dishes of all kinds, some delicacies Ithera couldn't even have imagined before, was entirely useless. Heather was clueless what to do with a _bloody woodstove_ , Ithera had a far better idea what she was doing than Heather and Mom had barely ever even let her touch the thing.

As she followed Mom's instructions, flitting about her as always, her mind wandered, thinking about how entirely different her life would be now. She was nobody important, true, just the bastard daughter of some no-name commoner of no account. Probably, anyway. Dad had said his sister had run off to marry some nobleman or something, but that she had run off all over again to hide her daughter away here implied she hadn't been her husband's in any case. It was possible her real father was another nobleman, a peer of her mother's husband, but then it was also possible he was a servant or something. Who could say? She definitely wasn't something so important as the Girl-Who-Lived, she doubted she had family of any import to come track her down. Ithera had idly dreamed as much, off and on since she'd been told the truth of her birth, but the part of her that was Heather, more realistic and pessimistic, knew it was unlikely. If no one had come for her yet, it was probable no one ever would at all.

Theirs was a hard life, she knew. They were poor farmers, yes, but even poor farmers in Heather's time had it easier. It didn't take a whole lot of _time_ to keep a farm this size going — at least, not by twentieth century, forty-hour-workweek standards — but it was _hard_ work. By the time she was grown, she'd definitely be fitter than Heather had been, if only from constantly doing things. And, well, eating better. Sort of sad, when she thought about it, that medieval peasant Ithera ate better than first-world suburbanite Heather. But anyway, with winters hard and cold, summers wet and mild, it was very possible Ithera wouldn't even live to adulthood, fall to illness or injury or even starvation, should the harvest fail.

At least, it would have been before. Ithera was magic now. Mages were far more resistant to illness and even injury, warming charms were _very_ easy, and she'd picked up enough in Herbology they could probably manage a harvest in the dead of winter if they really had to. She'd need to explain the whole magic thing, and preferably practise a bit getting more complicated stuff to work, but it _was_ possible. Ithera's odds of survival were far and away improved now that she had Heather's power and knowledge.

So, yes, it was a harder life here in the Valley, but she didn't particularly mind. Heather and Ithera were both accustomed to work. That there were far fewer comforts to be had here didn't bother her too much, and it probably wouldn't be long before she could get her magic to make up the difference anyway. It wasn't like there was a Statute of Secrecy and a Ministry to worry about here.

If there were one problem she saw sifting through what Ithera knew about this new world it was… Well, gender roles were rather more rigid here than they were in magical Britain. Heather had been a bit surprised at just how egalitarian mages were between the sexes — there was the occasional misogynist here and there, yes, but magic was the great equaliser, women having had level standing in magical society for centuries. Millennia, even. To put it briefly, the people of this world were not nearly so enlightened.

She knew she would be expected to marry eventually. And by "eventually" she actually meant comparatively soon. Earlier than even people in magical Britain did, which had always seemed weirdly early to Heather. It wasn't unusual for girls to marry as early as thirteen, but fifteen or sixteen was a lot more common. It was odd to see a girl reach twenty without marrying. It would definitely be expected of her. And this was a strong expectation, Mom would probably try to set her up with boys incessantly if she didn't take a fancy to someone herself. Which…

Despite herself, she was rather pleased. The part of her that was Heather and the part of her that was Ithera were in total agreement: she didn't like that idea.

She didn't want to stay here forever, in the Valley. She loved her parents, she loved her brother, but this wasn't the kind of life she wanted. She didn't want to be a farmer's wife, pop out a farmer's children and just...exist. She wanted to _do_ things. And she couldn't do things here.

Sitting at the table next to Mom as everyone ate, idly kicking her feet where they hung above the floor, she watched Mom and Dad talk about something, Roran speed through his breakfast with unreasonable eagerness. And she wondered just what she was going to do with herself.

Not that getting married would even be a sure thing, when she thought about it. Ithera knew dowries were a thing here. Not just something that happened sometimes, but it was the expected way of things, what everyone did, couldn't get into a proper marriage without one. Mom had had many siblings, and by the time she married Dad her family had had little left to give, but Dad had grown up dirt poor, and loved Mom, so he didn't care. But chances were, when it came time for Ithera to marry, her family would have nothing to give. She'd either have to find someone poor enough he didn't expect anything, or infatuated with her enough he'd overlook it. The chances of that were respectively unappealing — she wasn't so shallow as to care that much about wealth, but the people that would apply to would be like Dad, desperately poor farmers, and she didn't want to do this all her life — and unlikely — the people here were very hard, very practical.

But that was fine. She wouldn't be getting married. She didn't want to. She would wait, until she was old enough. Fifteen or so? And then she would leave. A woman travelling, living alone was weird, yes, but she didn't care. And she would have nothing to her name, true, but that was fine. She had magic. She would need to practice, to make sure she knew what she was doing, but she had years to figure out how to make her magic work like she was more used to. It was fine.

She would be sad to do it. She loved her parents, she loved her brother. She knew nothing else but this place, the people here — excluding Heather's memories, of course, which didn't really matter. She would be sad, it wouldn't be easy. But she'd do it.

Yes, she would do it. That was the plan. A plan that would be mostly irrelevant for years, but a plan.

So, she should get to work experimenting with her magic, then.

Once she and Roran were released, free to do whatever they will, they both scrambled to dress for the outdoors. In moments they were dashing across the snows, glittering crystal flung dancing in their wakes. Roran, she saw, was moving north, to meet with his friends, probably. He called to her, asking what she was doing, they were supposed to be going this way, but Ithera waved him off, said she'd be fine on her own.

She pushed out east toward the Anora, about a half-mile past the edge of the farm. It wasn't long before the wind was biting at her ears, at her nose, chill carried by the snow soaking in toward her legs and feet. Normally, she would bear it, it wasn't that bad, but there wasn't any reason to now. A quick order to the magic tight about her to keep her warm and it did, wreathing her with dry, comfortable air, the assault of winter immediately halted.

Ithera smiled.

A bit more trekking through the open snow, then a bit further under bare branches, picking with some difficulty through tight walls of skeletal bushes, and she reached the edge of the water. A glance behind confirmed she couldn't see through to the clear plain on the other side, the trees completely hiding her. A glance around and she saw no one. She was in the middle of nowhere, it was very unlikely anyone would stumble on her.

Alright, then. Time to see what she could do. She had never been great at wandless magic, but she had a suspicion it would be easier. Might as well try.

She tapped her lips for a second, trying to decide what to do. Her eyes randomly wandering came to a pile of snow, drifted somewhat higher than usual against the rocks lining the river. Her smile stretched a little wider. She didn't think of the incantation exactly, no — she knew from her mother's journals they weren't strictly necessary. Instead she thought of pushing, of hitting, of a solid force racing to strike against what she wanted gone. She pushed her mittened hand out from her body, straight at the pile of snow, willed her magic into motion, to slap the thing away.

The energy orbiting her whipped into motion, felt almost as a high whistling in her ears, stretching out toward the pile of snow. She could almost see it as it went, a shimmer in the air, striking the snow after barely a second. With a dull _thoof_ noise, the pile suddenly exploded, clumps of ice and flakes of snow dashing into the air with violent speed, scattering before her and flying dozens of feet away. It took long moments for it all to fall again, light skittery noises like rough cloth against cloth, a few plops of bigger bits falling into the partially-iced water. Even when it was all done, sunlight still glinted on ice newly suspended in the air.

Ithera couldn't hold in a gleeful cackle, practically jumping up and down in place.

Another bit of basic magic occurred to her. She spotted a rock just at the edge of the river, and she pointed at it, ordered it to _come_. She felt her magic reach out and grab it, then drag it over toward her. Dragged it very fast, right for the center of her chest. Ithera barely managed to duck in time, the rock winging over her head. She turned around, saw it spinning away into the trees. She ordered it to _come_ again, and it abruptly turned around, again shooting right for her heart. When it was close, an instant before it hit her, she held up a hand, ordered it to _stop_. It obeyed, hovering inches from her palm, floating unsupported in the air.

It took a bit to get her levitation skills down. Without a wand to help focus, direct her intent more effectively, it was a lot harder to get the rock to go exactly where she wanted it. Eventually, she figured it out, just using her finger to point where she wanted the rock to go. She was still far more clumsy than she'd been with her wand, but this was fine. It was still useable.

Still useable enough to do this! She spun on her heel, the rock spinning with her, picked a tree at random, and ordered the rock to _go_ , as hard as she could. It went off like a shot, hitting the tree she picked dead-center, the impact sending little flakes of wood scattering into the air, falling onto the snow like so much hail. When it cleared, she saw the rock had blown a hole straight through the trunk! The damage was enough the tree groaned, teetered, then started falling over. Falling over rather too close to her. Ithera skipped out of the way, the tree collapsing across the shore of the river, empty branches plunging into the water, the air filled with wood noisily snapping, water jumping and crashing.

Ithera grinned. She'd knocked over a whole tree, in an instant, just with a little rock! Magic was awesome!

A thought hit her, and she frowned down at her finger. She wondered if that would work. Carefully, she cast a stunning charm, performing the motions with her finger instead of a wand. Nope, didn't do anything. She tried it again, actually saying the incantation out loud. Nothing. She tried a handful of other charms, one after another after another, before finally deciding it wouldn't work. Must need a wand to do those. Maybe she should see if she could make one sometime, or at least a primitive substitute. Ithera knew Heather had always been powerful for a witch her age, it wouldn't have to be perfect.

Over the next hours, Ithera raced through the magics Heather had been taught, trying first this, then that, then the other thing. Some things worked, some things didn't. It seemed the simpler an _idea_ was, the easier it was to do it without an actual spell. Throw things around, easy. Cut things apart, set them on fire, melt ice or freeze water, all those were easy. More complicated charms were hopeless, she couldn't even get some she'd learned in first year to work. Of course, even with simple concepts, there was still a lot she could do. Her abilities were less than they'd been yesterday, yes, but not reduced to nothing, not even close.

Transfiguration was damn weird. She'd tried it with a twig for near on five minutes, and hadn't managed to change it a bit. But then she'd levitated up a bit of water, and tried to transfigure _that_ , and that she could actually do. It was a lot harder than it used to be, and the results looked a lot sloppier, but she could do it. She wouldn't be using it for anything sensitive any time soon, she'd have to practice. It _was_ weird that she could transfigure water with some effort, and a twig not at all, but that wasn't the really weird thing.

Conjuration was fucking _easy_.

Not as easy as it used to be, true. Simple things, in simple shapes, that was all she could do reliably. Anything too complicated and it came out looking wrong. But her conjurations came out even better than her transfigurations! That made absolutely no sense. How did that work? She tried with water again, to see if she were just getting better as she practiced but, no, conjuration was just easier now for some reason. She didn't get it. Fucking weird.

Not to say she could conjure anything really useful, not even close. She'd tried making a knife — probably something she should learn how to do, if only to defend herself — and that hadn't gone very well at all. Every time, it came out all weird, so misshapen she could barely hold it, the blade crooked and dull. And not always out of the material she meant them to be, the different parts blurred together strangely. No, she would need to work on this. Improve her visualization, her concentration. Practice, practice, practice.

Though she did squeal with delight when she discovered runic casting still worked. That solved _everything!_ She didn't need to be able to do charms if runic casting worked! All she had to do was draw the word for the spell she wanted in the air and…

The thought made Ithera freeze, blinking to herself. She… She knew how to _read!_ That was _so cool!_

She was only slightly disappointed when she realized the only languages she could read nobody else here spoke anyway.

Ithera got so distracted playing with magic, even just drawing runes in the air because _she could read_ and it was _magic_ and it was _pretty_ , that she hadn't realized near so much time had passed when her stomach suddenly started yelling at her. Instead of walking all the way back, she just apparated to the edge of the clearing around the farm — apparently, that worked too. She did have to walk the rest of the way, though, she wasn't ready for her family to know yet. It wasn't until she got inside and Mom was all worried that she realized she was a couple hours late for lunch.

Heh heh. Whoops.

* * *

Ithera was getting so tired she could barely see straight. Everything was all blurry, like there was something in her eyes, but blinking and rubbing at them didn't fix it. She could barely focus, she'd nearly run into the wall on the way to the kitchen and it was just...it was just bad.

She slumped down to a seat at the table, her muscles quivering with relief. Elbows against the surface, she rubbed at her face with both hands, the feeling of it all wrong, like her skin had been covered with a thin layer of rubber, not quite her. She'd been sitting a couple seconds when Mom was there, her hand rubbing Ithera's back, which also felt fuzzy and wrong, muttering in her ear. It took Ithera a couple seconds to figure out what she was saying. It didn't help that part of her still expected to hear English. "You should stay in bed, sweetheart. I know you had another bad night."

Ithera winced. That was a downside to sleeping with her parents, she'd noticed — they could tell when she didn't sleep. She couldn't help it, though. She'd been _trying_. She'd even knocked herself out with sleeping charms a couple times, but… "No point. I'll just…" She trailed off, shrugging.

"The nightmares aren't getting better?" Her voice was thick with concern. Heavy and warm, and almost pained, as though Ithera's discomfort physically hurt her.

"No. They're not." It had been almost a week now, since whatever happened had happened, she'd stopped being just Ithera and just Heather and became Ithera-and-Heather. The nightmares had started that second night. She dreamed of dragons, and giant spiders, and basilisks, and Veils. Evil men in their shiny masks, a purple-faced man with cruel eyes and heavy fists, a demon with glowing red eyes climbing out of the remains of a cauldron, a younger ghost of the same man, beautiful and silver-tongued, floating out of a life-sucking book. She dreamed of curses, from the wands of murderers and arrogant children alike, she dreamed of graveyards, she dreamed of dark forests, she dreamed of locked cupboards.

And she saw Luna. She'd died, right in front of her, and there had been nothing Heather could do. And Ithera saw her die, her blood staining her clothes, the light going out of her shining silver eyes. Again and again and again.

She couldn't make it stop. She woke up what felt like a dozen times a night, gasping, sometimes screaming, and she _couldn't make it stop_. It got to a point a part of her didn't _want_ to sleep anymore, because she knew the nightmares would come, and she would be scared, and she would _hurt_ , and it _wouldn't stop_. After two nights, she'd gone out into the forest, trying to track down ingredients to make a dreamless sleep potion. She might be able to improvise one if she found the right components. But, no, there'd been nothing, nothing useful, and by this point she doubted she had the concentration to do it even if she had the precise proper ingredients for the one Heather remembered, she'd needed to brew it so many times she'd had it memorised. If she tried she'd be more likely to just poison herself. She could barely even manage that sleeping charm anymore. Not that it mattered.

Ithera wondered how long she could go on like this. Heather had known people needed sleep, it started getting really bad if they went too long without it. Like, going insane bad. Like, dying bad. She'd been getting more than zero sleep. Not a lot, probably only a couple hours a night. But she couldn't help it. It _wouldn't stop_.

Mom had asked what she was dreaming about, but she hadn't known what to say. How did a little girl explain to her backcountry medieval farmer mother that the nightmares weren't hers? That they belonged to another girl, a girl who had been neglected and abused, tortured and assaulted, again and again and again, until she'd been an inch from breaking, until, at the end, death had been a relief? There was no way to explain that. There was no way Mom would believe it.

But, apparently, they'd watched her suffer enough. Ithera had barely been able to eat her breakfast, her hands shaky as she tried to feed herself, the food thick and tasteless in her mouth. She didn't really feel hungry anyway. Apparently that was enough for them, because it was hardly ten minutes after Mom and Roran had the dishes away that Dad had come back in from outside, said he had the horse hitched, get dressed to leave. Roran, who had been a bit down to match the mood, suddenly brightened, grinning as he read what that meant quicker than Ithera, barely listening, had managed.

Mom had had to tell her, while pulling a too-large coat over her head, wrapping her up in a quilt. They were going into town, to see Gertrude. To see if Carvahall's resident healer could help.

She probably couldn't. Heather doubted any healer was schooled in how to handle this sort of thing.

But Ithera went along with it, as though she had any choice in the matter. She sat bundled up in Mom's lap, on the cart Dad had the horse pulling. This was the one time she'd seen this thing not laden with surplus grain or vegetables to sell in town, seemed somehow small with only herself and Mom back here. Ithera just sat there, ignoring Roran wildly alternating between excited chatter and concerned questions, Mom and Dad occasionally muttering to each other. She just sat, watching the rolling drifts of snow scroll by, keeping her eyes open with every gram of will she had.

She knew what would happen if she closed her eyes. She didn't want to sleep, not even for a second. Because it would only be a short moment, she knew. A horrible moment. She may be weak, she may be pathetic, but she didn't want to. She'd avoid it as long as she could.

By Heather's standards, Carvahall was a village so tiny as to be nonexistent. A tight collection of simple houses of wood and stone and thatch, huddled close so as to present a single face against the blowing winds, there couldn't be more than a hundred people living here. Ithera didn't know exactly, but Heather guessed, knowing there were just under thirty buildings in the whole thing, seemed about right. It was one of the larger villages in the Valley, though. There were several others, she knew, dotted here and there, but they were usually about half the size, more a place for a few farming families to winter together than a true village. There was Therinsford to the south, of course, which Ithera had heard was much larger, enough to be a town. Ithera hadn't been there, so couldn't say herself, but she doubted Heather would be much more impressed by that one either.

The place was very quiet, still in the winter cold, as though all energy had been drained out of them, weighed down by the snows, hibernating in wait for spring to come. Smoke trailed from every roof, footprints and the occasional line of a wheel crisscrossing the narrow avenue, but Ithera didn't see a soul on their slow plod through the village. It was still early in the day, she guessed, but it was winter. Not really worth going outside, was it?

Before they had quite gotten to Gertrude's, Mom had pulled Roran aside, told him to run off to Horst's. Ithera knew the blacksmith had a couple boys, Roran could play with them until it was time to go home. For a second, Roran gave Ithera a heavy, worried look, but she nodded, and he was running off in an instant.

A minute later, Dad was pulling the horse to a stop, jumping off to tie her to a post outside the healer's. Ithera wriggled, moving to stand up, but apparently she wasn't required to do even that much today — before she'd even gotten out of Mom's lap, Dad was there, effortlessly lifting her up, gently clutched against his chest.

Normally, Heather might be slightly annoyed about them treating her like an invalid, slightly uncomfortable just with someone touching her. But she was too tired to even notice right now.

Not too tired to notice anything at all, though. At the door, waiting for Gertrude to answer Dad's knock, she stared blinking at the long bundle of greens she recognised as dittany hanging just outside. Apparently, Gertrude knew what she was doing.

Considering how important she was to the life of the village, Gertrude had an extremely simple home. A little one-room hut of wood and straw, an open fireplace in the center, a bed and a chair. Ithera was pretty sure Gertrude didn't technically live here during the winter — she was getting old, Ithera had heard Horst had started looking after her. It still seemed nice enough, warm and cozy, air thick with incense, plants recognisable as potion ingredients and some not, both fresh and dried, hanging in bundles from the ceiling.

The part of her that was Heather was uncomfortably reminded of Trelawney. But she was mostly just sleepy.

She wasn't really keeping track of what was going on around her. There was a lot of prodding, and questions being asked, and talking. She couldn't really keep track. The world was going all...swirly. Again. It would stop in an hour or so. Or she would temporarily pass out. Which would be bad.

Dying silver eyes flashed before her own, she reflexively squeezed them closed. It didn't help much. She opened her eyes with a start, before she had time to fall asleep again. She would rather not. Then she'd have to actually see it.

She was so sick of seeing it.

She wasn't paying that much attention, but she was pretty sure the conversation was going badly. By the tone of Mom and Dad's voices, Gertrude's fidgeting. Something was wrong. Before she could catch up, Gertrude was on her feet, with a last exchange of murmurs with her parents, she was out the door.

The world was so blurry, she couldn't get it to make sense. Everything kept swirling, down and to the left, going and going and going. Her parents were talking, talking to her, but she wasn't really listening. Buzzing of flies in her ears. She could barely even think anymore. It was too heavy and thick and everything was all droopy and terrible, she couldn't…

He had silver-blonde hair, sharp nose and narrow lips, a severe sort of dip at the corners. His eyes were bright, but cold, chips of deep blue gemstone lit from behind.

Gertrude hadn't returned alone. Ithera knew who this was. He was the storyteller, Brom. She'd never really talked to him before, just listened to his stories. He was smart, and funny.

And there was something…

Far too sleepy to think straight, Ithera's mind randomly wandered. Or not too randomly. He was there. A lot. Ithera hadn't consciously noticed, but Heather was far more aware of such things, accustomed to watching her own back. He was there, in far too many of Ithera's memories. Practically every time she'd been to Carvahall. Following, watching. Standing there, looking like...like…

He sort of looked like...

The realization hit Ithera like a bludgeoning curse to the back of her head.

Brom the Storyteller was her father.

Huh.

Ithera was so busy with the twisting thoughts dancing around in her foggy head, blankly staring at the man who she was pretty sure had been her secret father this entire time, she didn't hear a bit of the conversation going on. They were talking, talking about her, but she didn't hear it. She just kept thinking, her father was real, he was alive, he was right here, this was really happening. She had absolutely no idea how to respond to this.

It didn't help that it'd been years, she couldn't remember Brom not living in the village, and he'd never said anything.

But she did notice, as he was talking to Gertrude, her parents, that he was staring back at her as steadily as she was staring at him. His blue eyes narrowed, hard and empty as diamonds.

And then she felt it. She flinched at the touch, but it wasn't really a touch, not a physical thing against her physical body. Instead it was magic, instead it was thought, reaching into her magic, into her thoughts. It didn't feel quite right, different than Heather was used to. Not with the same sharpness, the same nauseating grime legilimency usually had, instead soft, diffuse, like water sinking into soil. And she knew, instinctively, Brom was trying to read her mind.

Just as instinctively, without even really deciding to, Heather clenched her jaw, and gave the foreign presence a hard _push_. She may be sleepy, she may only be half here, but her magic jumped to her defense easily enough. Like steel doors slamming shut, Brom was blocked out.

Brom's eyes went wide, hand jumping to his head. He staggered back a few steps, staring at Ithera with obvious shock, obvious enough the other three in the room were chattering, probably asking what was wrong. But they both ignored them, staring steadily into each other's eyes. Brom moved first, the hand not holding his walking stick raising a bit above his waist. A tiny gesture, a muttered word.

Ithera felt the magic rise in the air, thick and warm, soothing, like the warmest and most comfortable of blankets. It settled on her parents, it settled on Gertrude, it tried to settle on her. But Ithera's magic, bound tight against her skin, simmered and sizzled, rising to resist. Brom wasn't weak, he'd put quite a bit into that spell, but Ithera _pushed_ , showing no more than a twitch of an eye, and the sleeping charm trying to seep into her was burned away.

At least, she thought it was a sleeping charm. By the way her parents slumped to the floor, Gertrude passing out in her chair, it was a good bet.

Again, Brom jumped, wide eyes almost quivering with the intensity they had on her. Empty, far too dark for how light the color actually was. He raised his hand a bit higher, palm pointed at her. After a short silence, he said, voice low and harsh, "How did you do that?"

"You shouldn't do magic on people without asking. It's kin—" Ithera broke off for a second, choking back a yawn. "It's rude."

By the way Brom stared at her, eyes blinking, mouth silently working, he had absolutely no idea how to respond to that.

"Are they sleeping?" Ithera looked over at Mom, slumped against the foot of Gertrude's bed. It was hard to tell just looking. Biting her lip as she focused on the feel of her magic floating around her — she hadn't tried this yet, and she was _really_ sleepy — she reached out toward Mom, trying to feel her. After a second, she felt herself relax slightly. "Oh, good then. I'd be mad if you hurt her."

"Who are you?" Brom still sounded angry, scared, but there was a note of confusion in there too. He was looking at her with this odd frown, cautious, like she were dangerous, but also some fascinating being he'd never even heard of before. Like a cat with pink stripes suddenly started talking and doing magic in front of him.

But Ithera just sleepily blinked up at him. That was a stupid question.

His teeth gritting just visibly, Brom reached for his magic, the air again tingling with it. Muttering to himself again, he cast some kind of charm, Heather had no idea what. But she could feel it settling around her ankles, her wrists, obviously a binding spell of some kind. It was invisible though, and it hadn't needed to cross the air to reach her. Interesting.

This was as easy to get rid of as the sleeping charm. She just stabbed a bit of her own power, vibrating with the rhythm of a dispel, into the restraints before they could properly form. The interference tore the things apart in seconds. "Stop that. I'm too sleepy for this to be fun."

And Brom's glare just got darker, his voice just got harsher. "Who _are_ you?"

She blinked some more. "Ithera Manisdaughter. Hi."

"Don't even _try_ to fool me," Brom hissed, the cold in his eyes turning colder, so cold they burned. "You are _not_ Ithera. You don't even feel human."

"Yep, I'm Ithera. Dunno about the human part, I guess? I'm weird. There's the magic thing, and I think my magic is weird." Ithera squinted at Brom, looking for a copy of the halo of magic she had orbiting around herself. He didn't seem to have any outside of him, but he was definitely magic, he'd just been doing spells, coming out from inside himself. Inheriting Heather's magic from another universe must have made her different, but she wasn't sure if that meant she wasn't human. Maybe just a weird human? "But Ithera, yes, that I am."

Brom's eyes narrowed a bit further. "Prove it. Tell me something only Ithera would know."

"Like what?" Ithera was too sleepy to scoff properly, but she made some kind of displeased noise, at least. "For being my dad, you're never around, you don't know anything only I would know. And apparently mind-reading is a thing, if I'm not the real Ithera I could have stolen it." He was really quite bad at this paranoia thing. She could only imagine what Moody would say. It was embarrassing.

"I—" The cold fire in his eyes sputtered out, his mouth dropped open. His hand, previously held up toward her in what she assumed would have been a threatening gesture if she knew how magic was supposed to work in this world, dropped suddenly to his side, limp, like he were a puppet that had just had one of his strings cut. He stared at her for long moments, blinking, struggling for words. Even when he found them, all he managed to say was, "How? How long?"

She shrugged. "Just now. And, I dunno. Just kinda look like me, I guess."

Brom's sharp, pointy-nosed face squished into an almost pouty glare at that, clearly annoyed. Which was a bit silly. She guessed, just because he kind of looked like her wasn't a _great_ reason to jump to the conclusion that he was her father, but, in all fairness, she really didn't look that much like anyone else in the village. She had more silver bits in her hair than most, her face was shaped subtly wrong. She was pretty sure she'd gotten that pointy nose of his too, but it was a little hard to tell when she was still so young. And Brom looked _really_ different, when she thought about it, not at all like anyone else in Carvahall, totally foreign.

Really, and with the way he always followed her around, it wasn't that much of a leap. No reason to be all silly.

So, she was just going to ignore the issue, and move on. "Do _you_ have some magic thing that will make me not have nightmares? I don't think Gertrude is good enough, and I'd really like to stop."

When Brom didn't answer, still just blankly staring at her, Ithera couldn't help feeling a bit irritated. With Heather's luck, she really should have known that, even if she did find him, her father would be completely bloody useless.


	3. 3

Brom was starting to feel Ithera might be the single most unnerving person he had ever met. Or perhaps the fact that she was barely seven years old and his daughter — silly him, he'd been under the impression _that was a secret_ — simply made it far harder to cope with.

It was a few weeks after the day the baffling girl had shredded all his carefully laid plans with a few casual sentences. They were sitting before the fire in his home, both laden with tea Brom had had shipped special from the South. (He'd admit he could get fussy about his tea.) Ostensibly, to check how she was recovering from her bout of insomnia, which he of course would, but mostly so Brom would have another chance to try to figure her out.

By how she seemed to be flatly watching back, wide eyes fixed on him with unnatural steadiness, she'd probably come with a similar intent. That was what bothered him, mostly, on a second-to-second level. Ithera was too damn quiet for a child her age. She was still, calm, with the confidence and self-possession of a woman three times her age, staring back at him with eyes far too even, far too intelligent. She looked like a child, but she didn't hold herself like one. It was unnatural, hit him like ants crawling across his skin.

Long moments passed, both silently staring at each other, and it slowly became clear Ithera wasn't planning on saying something. She was just sitting there, calmly sipping her tea, staring back at him. He cleared his throat, internally shook himself. Might as well get the first awkward issues out of the way. "I assume you have questions."

Ithera tilted her head slightly, eyes narrowing. "I guess. Never had a father before. Dunno what I should be asking." She took another slow sip, still calmly examining him, as though he were a puzzle she was working at solving.

Yes. Very unsettling.

After some seconds, she finally spoke. "You didn't tell me."

He blinked. "Hmm?"

"You didn't tell me you're my father."

And that would be the awkward issue he was thinking of, getting right to the point. Scrambling one last second to decide how best to explain, he asked, "And how did you find out, anyway?"

She shrugged. "No one told me, if that's what you're asking. I just knew. You act all..." Ithera trailed off, frowning to herself. "Uh, suspect?"

Somehow, he managed not to wince. "Suspicious."

"Yeah, suspicious. You act all suspicious, following me all the time. And we look alike, so I guessed."

Brom frowned at that. They didn't look _that_ alike, he didn't think. She took after her mother. If he hadn't a basic understanding of genetics, he might have doubted she was really his — light hair was far less common in the south. (Not to mention how the dates worked out, not the point.) But he hadn't thought he'd been acting _that_ obviously. He'd been careful. He couldn't help observing her when he had opportunity, he was just too curious, but he'd tried not to draw too much attention to just how much she interested him. He'd never gotten that close. He'd seen enough to know her recent behavior was unusual, and he still wasn't entirely convinced something very strange hadn't happened to her to make her...well, like this. But he hadn't thought it'd been that obvious.

If Ithera could figure it out so easily, he had to wonder if anyone else had. The thought was quite worrying.

But anyway, to the question she'd asked, yes. "It... It's complicated, Ithera. I _wanted_ to—" He broke off, lifted one hand from his mug to rub at his eyes. Why did this have to be so uncomfortable? It would have been so much easier if she'd just never figured it out. "It's too dangerous, you see. I would have raised you myself if I could, I hate not being able to... But, it's complicated. I have a lot of enemies, Ithera, and if they knew you were mine, they might hurt you to get to me. I can't bear the thought of— Well," he finished, rather lamely in his own opinion, but he really didn't know what else to say.

Come to think of it, he'd probably said too much already. Children talk, they have no ability to properly keep secrets, he couldn't let her know too much. If word got back to the wrong ears about who he was, what he'd done, where he could be found, it would mean disaster for all of Carvahall.

Galbatorix would kill every last one of them for even the slightest chance of getting Brom. He knew that.

"That's silly." Brom jumped, frowning at the tone on the two short words. She spoke with a child's voice, of course, all high and thin, but that flat derision sounded far too mature for someone her age, it clashed. "What kind of enemies do Storytellers get, anyway? Couldn't you just magic them away?"

He sighed, his eyes falling closed. "I'm sorry, I really can't tell you. It's too dangerous."

"That's silly too. You can't read my mind. Could other magic people?"

He found himself frowning again. He'd almost forgotten about that. Before he'd even managed to pick up the tiniest sliver of thought, Ithera's mind had shut down tight, the boundary of her essence reinforced in a way Brom had never seen before. Power had been threaded through the walls isolating her, as though the world itself had risen to defend her at her call. He'd never seen such a thing before. He hadn't even tried breaking through it, but he didn't think he'd be able to. He had the weird thought Galbatorix or even Giderien would have trouble with it. The thought was absurd, but wreathing someone's mind with magic like that was entirely unprecedented, he couldn't help it.

So, yes, it was probable nobody would be able to get whatever he told her straight out of her mind. But that still didn't mean telling her anything would be wise. "With a couple particular exceptions, probably not, no. But my secrets are secret for a reason. If they got out, everyone in Carvahall would be in danger. And I'm not exaggerating."

"I can keep a secret."

"I didn't make it this long relying on the espionage abilities of children."

"I _can_." He cracked his eyes open to see she was glaring at him, eyes hard and angry. "I don't know all the words you just said, but I know you think I can't. But I can."

'When have you ever kept a secret of any significance?"

Her glare only got hotter. "Oh, I don't know. How about my magic? My family still doesn't know I have magic, and I practice every day."

That...was a good point, actually. And, well, he found her so unnerving in the first place because she spoke and acted with maturity disproportionate to her age. And she was quiet... Maybe he could... "Where exactly did you learn so much magic anyway?"

"Nuh-uh. Your secrets first."

Brom snorted — naturally. "Nobody can know." He turned to stare back into her eyes, his voice hard and stern. " _Nobody_. Not your family, not _anyone_. Understand?"

Her expression appropriately grave, she nodded.

Oh, this was a terrible idea. "I assume you've heard of the Vahdit."

"Yeah." Then Ithera's eyes went wide, the last hints of her earlier anger washed away with surprise. " _Oh."_

"Oh," he agreed with a nod. "I had a long career with the Vahdit, and I was very good at my job. There are very few things the King wouldn't be willing to sacrifice to get his hands on me. That is why I kept my distance. If he knew you existed, the King would kidnap you to get me out in the open. He might even just kill you to hurt me. It was safer for you, to not know who I am, to not get too close to me."

Somewhat to his confusion, Ithera, face half-hidden by her cup of tea, seemed to be smiling. "It _was_ safer, cause now that I know, there's no point in staying away."

Brom glared at her, but it seemed to have no effect on her whatsoever, her smile only widening slightly. Which was slightly irritating — he'd gotten soldiers and kings and nobles of all three races to blanch with but a look, but Ithera seemed more amused than anything. Evidently, she really did take after her mother. Considering she'd managed to discover magic apparently on her own, that was another worrying thought.

"Was my mother in the Vahdit?"

He blinked at the question for a second, unbalanced by the change in subject, then hesitated a moment more. How much to tell her? She may be unnaturally mature for her age, but she was still a child... "Ah, not officially, no. She turned spy for us near the end, but she fought for the King."

"Oh." Ithera paused for a second, blinking into the fire. Then her smirk burst into existence again, and she turned to him to say, "Did you meet cause you were trying to kill each other? That'd be funny."

"Well, yes, actually." He'd had the Black Hand tracking him more than once, though he'd managed to stay enough ahead he'd never seen her. They hadn't been in the same room at the same time until he'd learned the infamous assassin was, in fact, Morzan's latest wife, and he'd snuck into his country estate, intending to confirm their intelligence and kill them both if at all possible.

He _really_ didn't see what was so funny about that.

"She was married to someone very powerful, just under the King, and I was at their home. Spying, pretending to be a gardener. I really didn't mean for it to happen, we just..." Brom shrugged. "She turned spy for us, informing on places and people close to the King we didn't have access to. She died a few months later. I settled my affairs with the Vahdit, and I came here."

"Mm." Ithera was silent for a short while, gazing into the fire. "How big are you in the Vahdit, anyway?"

Brom frowned. "Does that matter?"

Narrow shoulders rising in a shrug, she said, "I don't care, really. Just... If the King knows about my magic what would he do?"

A shiver ran down his spine, a pulse of unease he was certain he failed to keep from his face. "Nothing good, that's for certain."

"He'd send people, to get me."

"A company of soldiers, at least." Along with the Raazac, but maybe not. Ithera had shown no particular allegiance yet, and if she still hadn't by then, he might be aiming to recruit, not eliminate her. One of his pet magicians, then, with escort. But if he found out who she was, he'd almost certainly come himself, and that could get very ugly very quickly.

Ithera nodded. She said, evenly and calmly, "We will need to leave, when my magic gets out. Before my family gets hurt. The Vahdit might take us, if they like you enough."

Once again, a cold shiver, sliding like icy water down his spine. This child was far too unnerving sometimes. A little girl, talking so calmly about the most dangerous, most deadly individual in all of Allagøsin coming for her. That she would need to run, or her family might be killed because of her. That she would need to run, and hope an organization fomenting violent revolt against the kingdom would take her in.

She didn't say _if_ her magic was discovered. She said _when_. A young child, and she knew enough to realize, like he had, that it was inevitable, her days here were numbered. The day would come something happened, she would slip, and she would have to flee, to leave everything she had ever known behind.

Brom had to delay, with an over-long sip of his tea, before he was certain his voice would be level. "They would take us. If we showed up, I'm certain they would take us."

"And you know how to find them." It wasn't a question, really, Ithera's voice even and supremely confident. Confident in _him_ , the father she'd hardly even spoken to. He wasn't entirely sure how to feel about that.

So he decided to not dwell on it. "Yes, I can find them. If not the Vahdit, I have other friends we could go to."

Ithera nodded. "Good, then." That apparently settled, she turned back to the fire, and calmly sipped at her tea.

Yes. She was a _very_ unsettling child. And he'd thought elven children were bad. "Was that it?"

"Should there be something else? I mean, there might be things, but if I don't know what they are, I can't know to ask about them. If it matters, it'll come up later. I'm good for now."

Brom could only hope that, eventually, he would get used to her. Because this was extremely unsettling, and he couldn't even exactly put words to why. She was just...

It was unsettling, that was all.

* * *

"How are you _doing_ this?"

Ithera blinked, glanced over her shoulder at Brom. "It's not hard. A pretty simple charm, really," she said, nodding at the balls of snow, compressed to an icy sheen, orbiting her head.

"But you're not—" Brom let out an odd choking noise, a hand burying itself in his hair. He looked far too...what was the word? Anyway, he clearly wasn't happy, just a second from panic, really, pointy face pulled into a grimace, breath abnormally thick. "Just, magic isn't a _toy_ , Ithera. You shouldn't play around with it like this, you, you could _seriously_ hurt yourself."

Ithera frowned, glanced at the floating ice. She wasn't really sure how this was so dangerous. She hadn't done anything _that_ bad yet. Well, okay, the fire, could burn herself, and her efforts to recreate cutting and blasting charms could blow up in her face. But just this? "I don't know what's so dangerous about playing with snow, really."

" _It's not about the—"_ He abruptly cut off, covering his face with both hands. He was silent for a long moment. Or, mostly silent, but for deep breaths forcing his shoulders up and down, up and down. Finally, he dropped his hands, his lined, pointy face pulled into a calm mask. And it was a mask, Heather could tell he was barely holding himself from a full-blown panic. "Ithera, magic is _very dangerous_. Every spell you do takes energy _from you_ , makes you weaker."

She blinked. "Huh?"

"This power doesn't come from nothing, and there is always a price. Every spell you do takes as much out of you as it would if you did it physically, with your own hands. Something like this..." He waved at the balls of gleaming snow floating around her, a twitch of a finger revealing the casual motion for a lie. "...this doesn't take too much out of you, it won't hurt you. But you won't always know what will. This is not a game, Ithera. Do something too big, and you could die."

Ithera stared at the man for a long moment, calmly taking in every inch of him. His features, so similar to her by now familiar face, twisted into a serious, severe sort of frown. He had a pretty good severe frown, actually. Helped along by now naturally sharp his face was, it might even be better than Snape's — since she was pretty sure he wouldn't hurt her, though, it was hard to take it entirely seriously. Every bit of how he was holding himself, how he had modulated his voice, everything about him exuding a sort of...concerned intensity. Which was honestly a bit...

Not that she was taking what he'd just said seriously, of course. She'd decided the very first time they'd met that her magic worked differently from his magic, which would imply her magic worked differently from _everyone else_. Which made an odd sort of sense — Heather had come from a different world, and she'd taken her magic with her. She did think it was a bit...odd, that her magic would still work the way it used to, even though magic here was completely different. That _shouldn't_ happen, but it made perfect sense if you squinted a little.

But it was just...

She turned half away, absently looking out over the river to her back. There were arguments either way. She meant, if she were being perfectly cautious, she probably shouldn't let Brom know just what her abilities were. Especially if they were that unusual here. Especially since he just thought of her as a helpless six-year-old girl. Moody would _certainly_ tell her to keep it to herself, there was no telling how important that advantage could be later. And it might be a bit unwise, it might make this _very_ new relationship of theirs far more complicated than was really necessary. But the thought of lying, just going along with his expectations, she wasn't entirely comfortable with it. She couldn't really say why.

She was kidding herself, she knew why. Heather could count on the fingers of one hand the people who had ever shown legitimate, selfless concern for her.

That was cheating, really.

She took in a long breath through her nose, gave herself a little nod. "No."

"I'm sorry?"

"No, that's not how my magic works." Before he could say anything — and he did look like he was about to say something, face going severe enough it was even angry, hands already moving for her shoulders — she took a quick step away. It took only the barest thought to pull back on herself, draw a small portion of the magic of the world into the tip of her finger. It came out again as softly shimmering light, white and orange and purple, trailing along as she drew a few quick runes in the air. Once the spell was set, she funnelled a small portion of her own power through, the ambient magic around her following in its wake.

There was a sharp flash of white light, a rush of wind whipping at her hair and the hems of her rough clothes, the sudden warmth almost painful against her chilled skin, so thick with magic it tingled. There was a moment of noise and warmth and chaos as the snow at their feet instantly burst into steam, snow further away flung into the air, dancing in the sunlight like fireflies, barren branches snapping and cracking.

But it only lasted for a couple seconds. When it was done, a circle of unseasonal warmth had been carved into the heart of winter. The air was pleasantly cool, thick and sweet like the nicest spring morning. The dirt at her feet was soft, the pressed and browned grasses open to the air. To her back, she heard the river, the babbling of its rush over the bedrock suddenly much louder, the nearest ice melted away. All along the perimeter was a low fence of fire a piercing white, hard and hot, but holding its place with unnatural steadiness, shielding against the cold.

While Brom sat there, staring at the results of her spell in dumbfounded silence, Heather cast another runic spell — though this one took several more words than the last, and much more power from both her and the natural magic that supplemented any runic spell, but it wasn't even close to more than what she could handle. Gradually, from the bottom up, the dead brown color of the grasses and weeds around them was chased away, replaced with a vibrant green. The revived plants straightened, stretching up toward the harsh winter sun, leaves sprouting on empty branches, tears and breaks patching over, a few stalks along the river edge even sprouted blue-white blossoms.

While her magic did its work, Ithera simply stared up at Brom. When it was done, she crossed her arms, ticked a single eyebrow up a little. What she'd just done wasn't _that_ impressive — doing it that _quickly_ , cheating as she had with runic spells, would be a bit unusual, but any Hogwarts student past fifth year or so should be able to manage it, given a little more time. By what Brom had been trying to say about how magic was supposed to work around here, by the incredulous expression on his face as he stared at the gently bobbing flowers, she had the feeling—

"This is _impossible_."

Yeah. That.

He finally managed to wrench his eyes away from the unnatural spring she'd made, turned to stare at her. It was hard to read his expression exactly, but if she had to guess she'd put it somewhere halfway between awestruck and suspicious. "What _are_ you?"

She felt a smirk twitch at her lips. "Ithera Manisdaughter. I thought we'd done this."

"No, I mean—" He broke off with a hard puff of air, not quite a sigh but not exactly not one either. Waving a hand vaguely around them, he said, "This shouldn't even..." He trailed off again, shaking his head. "And you don't— You don't _feel_ human. I've been trying to ignore it, but, but it's _very_ odd."

This was supposed to be a serious conversation she was trying to have with the man who was apparently her father. And that sort of conversation was something she was not at all used to — the closest thing Heather had ever had to a father was Sirius, who was entirely unfamiliar with the concept, and Ithera simply hadn't been old enough to have had any with Garrow yet. It was a distraction, only tangential to the topic at hand, but she was far too curious to not ask. "What _do_ I feel like?"

"Well, not a human, certainly, but not really an elf either. It's almost..." Brom went quiet for a moment, frowning at her. "I would say you feel, well, more like a dragon than anything, but that doesn't..."

Ithera blinked. "A dragon? How do you know what a dragon feels like? Aren't they all dead?"

The hesitation was so short Ithera almost missed it entirely. "Not from personal experience, of course, but I have spoken to elves and even men who had been around back then. Being in the presence of a dragon is apparently not something one forgets."

And she frowned at him, hard enough almost to be called a pout. That explanation was _mostly_ reasonable — while Brom hadn't mentioned meeting any elves yet, he _had_ said he'd been part of the Vahdit, and everyone knew they were allies. The problem was he was lying. "Is that really what you want to do?"

He frowned back at her, but his fingers twitched a little, guilty. "What do you mean?"

"This is all new. Us. I just thought you wouldn't want to start lying to me so soon."

"I'm not—"

"Stop it. I'm not stupid. Don't talk to me like I am."

Brom winced, even cringed away from Ithera, almost seeming to be in pain. For long moments he just stood there fidgeting — very low-key fidgeting, just shifting his weight a little, fingers twitching, occasionally reaching to pull at his beard before stopping himself and lowering his hand again, but still fidgeting. His eyes would slip from the rocky, weedy soil at their feet, to the river behind her, to her eyes, to the snow a couple feet away, and back again.

He took a slow breath in and out, eyes closed. "There may be a couple things I haven't come clean about."

No shit, really?

* * *

"So will you answer my question now?"

Ithera had been lost in her thoughts, far too deeply, with a stillness that still struck him as unseemly in a child her age, eyes staring unfocused into the white flames she had conjured. That had been her only reaction to everything he had just told her: considering silence. Which was just another thing to be unnerved about. He had absolutely no idea how he would have reacted to the revelation his father was a multicentarian former Dragon Rider — diplomat, revolutionary, assassin. And their situations were even almost comparable, his own father _had_ died when he'd been very young. He hadn't had any secrets with quite that sort of weight, but Brom thought... Well, there would have been something.

Perhaps Ithera simply didn't understand the significance of what he'd tried to explain. She was yet very young, after all. She might be unnaturally intelligent and composed for her age, but in their previous conversations she had demonstrated an entirely appropriate ignorance of the greater world.

Not that he wasn't somewhat relieved she was taking all this so easily. If she'd reacted badly, or perhaps even _too_ well, he wouldn't have had any idea how to handle that. He really hadn't much experience dealing with children. She was just...

He was really starting to hope he'd get used to her eventually. Feeling this unsettled around her all the time would get very old very fast.

But his voice startled her out of he thoughts, jerking back up to face him. "Ah, what question?"

"You said earlier, my secrets first. You have mine now. All the pertinent ones, anyway," he said, sensing her fomenting objection. After a second, he realized she probably didn't know what _pertinent_ meant — that scrunching of her nose was probably a confused frown. "Of course there are things I haven't told you. I have lived a very long time. To explain everything about my life would keep us standing out here for days. But I am not holding back any more big surprises. Nothing of me you don't know will make any difference."

Even as he said it, he realized that wasn't strictly true. He hadn't, for example, told her who exactly it was her mother had been married to. He hadn't mentioned Morzan at all, had said nothing about their rather complicated history. It was certainly possible that _would_ have some meaning to her — if not right this second, perhaps when she was older, knew more about the people and events involved. But she didn't really need to know that. Especially not now, it would only muddy the waters further.

Was how he rationalized it to himself, he knew. Honestly, he simply didn't want to talk about Morzan. Brom avoided even thinking about him if at all possible. In an odd sort of way, getting out the little he'd said about Safir had been easier than talking about Morzan would be — the loss was indeed so much greater, but all these decades later she was impossible to leave unacknowledged, even for an instant.

He'd long since come to the conclusion he would never stop grieving. In a way, he'd been almost relieved. As long as it kept hurting, he knew he would _never_ forget her. That meant something. It wasn't enough, but it would do.

But anyway, Ithera was giving him an intensely hesitant look, one corner of her lips yanked back in a grimace. Avoiding his eyes, she muttered, "I did say that, didn't I."

"You did."

"And I guess you're never gonna be okay with my magic if I don't tell you what happened."

He felt like... Well, he felt like doing, saying _something_. He'd known something must have happened to her, recently. He'd never gotten close, of course, but even from a distance he'd known Ithera hadn't always been...well, like this. He'd _known_ something had happened, but Ithera had flatly denied his suspicions. This was the first time she'd admitted something _had_ happened, there was something out of the ordinary with her. He wanted to laugh, he wanted to yell, he wanted to cry, he wanted to take her by the shoulders and shake an explanation out of her.

But he forced himself to do nothing. To stand, and to wait, in silence. His jaw clenched so hard his teeth ached, but he managed it.

Ithera was giving him a queer, narrow-eyed look, but she didn't address his tension he realized had to be obvious. Slowly, each syllable even and carefully enunciated, she said, "I'm Ithera Manisdaughter."

And now he felt like screaming. But he swallowed it, forced his voice as calm as humanly possible. "That isn't an answer, Ithera."

"I know, I don't—" She sighed, her arms coming up to clench about her own waist, eyes darting away. "I'm just saying. I'm still Ithera. Even if..." For a few short seconds, silence, her tongue running over her lips. "It's weird. I know it's weird. And it might not sound like I'm Ithera, not really. But I _am_. I'm still me. I just... Don't forget that. Okay?"

Suddenly, despite the impossible circle of warmth Ithera had created in the midst of winter, Brom felt uncomfortably chilled. He just _knew_ he was going to hate this.

* * *

Ithera had to wonder how much of that stuff it would take for Brom to get drunk. She had no idea how much alcohol was in there, but he couldn't be entirely sober anymore.

It hadn't taken very long for Brom to decide that he needed a drink to deal with this. (Right around when she mentioned the half of her from another world had been violently murdered when she was seventeen. She could imagine how a father-type person might take that badly.) Ithera had undone her magic, grabbed him by the hand, and apparated them straight into his disorganized little house at the edge of the village. (Seriously, it was a mess, books and scrolls and loose sheets of both paper and parchment and little doodads she couldn't identify scattered all over the place.) Brom had made tea for her — at least, he called it tea, Heather was certain it wasn't the same tea they had on Earth — but he'd poured himself a mug of something out of a thick glass bottle.

He'd gone through a few more mugs, as she did her best to tell the story of Heather. Which wasn't exactly easy. She might have the intelligence of a seventeen-year-old, but she was still stuck with the language skills of a six-year-old. (In Brodhrish, at least, she could speak English perfectly fine, not that it would do any good.) Well, probably better than a six-year-old by now, she was paying attention and trying to learn as quickly as she could, but her vocabulary was still a bit limited. It was very difficult, trying to get Brom to understand what Earth things were, when she didn't know the proper words in Brodhrish, maybe there _weren't_ proper words in Brodhrish at all, it was hard to even find the words to come up with something close enough.

It was frustrating, for both of them. Hell, it'd taken her far too bloody long just trying to get the idea of a train across. They didn't have them here, after all.

But, as her story had gone along, Brom clearly hadn't been taking it very well. He'd been fascinated by the whole idea of Earth, the magic and technology there, asking all kinds of questions Ithera really didn't have the words to answer — after she'd convinced him she hadn't gone completely mad, of course, but grabbing a sheet of paper and a quill and writing a bit in English had gone a fair way. His curiosity had gradually gone away, though, overpowered by everything else. There'd been bits of anger and horror as appropriate, but even those had slowly deadened, until he'd gone quiet, glass held tight in his hands, staring unseeing at the wood of the table.

Which, honestly, Ithera was somewhat... She meant, she hadn't even told him the worst stuff. She hadn't exactly _lied_ about the Dursleys, though she'd patched over a lot of it, made it seem not quite as bad as it really had been. She'd failed to mention the nearly dying from basilisk venom bit. He didn't need to hear how she was pretty sure Pettigrew had seen her naked at least once, when she'd been staying at the Weasleys' before second year. She'd said the Dementor's Kiss just killed people, no reason to bring soul sucking into this. She hadn't bothered with any of the random hexing in the corridors from fourth year. She might have made the cruciatus and the imperius sound far less scary than they actually were. It was possible she'd failed to mention...almost anything that had happened in fifth year — she was worried he might break something if she said a professor had basically tortured her, or an older boy had nearly raped her. (The latter didn't even really bother her, she'd fought him off without too much trouble, though she _was_ sickeningly grateful Snape had deigned to teach her occlumency that year. She just doubted Brom would see it the same way.) She'd intentionally made it sound like she just _knew_ all these people were dead, not that she'd personally witnessed them be killed. Dumbledore, Moody, Hestia, Katie, Tracey, Susan, Sirius, Tonks, Snape...Luna...

Yeah, she tried to avoid remembering it all herself. No reason to burden Brom with it too.

Though, it wasn't all bad stuff she'd left out. There was no way they had time to talk about _everything_ that had happened to Heather, so naturally some stuff both bad and good would be missed. But even some very good things she chose not to talk about on purpose. Most particularly, Luna. She'd mentioned they'd been friends, of course, she'd actually talked quite a lot about Luna. She'd just, uh, left out some of the... _details_ , about their relationship.

She had absolutely no idea how people here felt about homosexuality. Ithera hadn't even known it was a thing people did until Heather had gotten dropped into her head. There was really no reason to complicate things by talking about it. Besides, chances were it would never be an issue. It was most likely Ithera — she meant, her body, her physical Ithera-ness — would be straight anyway, so. If it _did_ become a thing, she might come clean about it then, but until that happened, well, _she was six years old_ , really now.

The Hat would be so pleased, she thought. Here she was, finally thinking like a Slytherin for once. Crazy, she knew.

Of course, that she was willing to tell him as much as she did, or even anything at all, might have something to do with why she'd actually ended up in Hufflepuff instead. So not the point.

Why was she even thinking about that? Hogwarts was in an _entirely separate universe_. (Uh, maybe? She thought that's what was going on...) Honestly, she was being so silly.

"I..."

Ithera blinked, looked back to Brom. It had been some time since he'd spoken, she didn't know how long exactly. His voice had come out thin and harsh, as wind gently brushing at sand, so weak he'd broken off after a single syllable. He didn't look entirely well, slumped over the table, one hand buried in his flyaway hair to the wrist, face mostly hidden by a sleeve. And he struggled to find his voice for a short while, throat working, throwing back a little more of whatever that was in his mug.

Finally, he rasped, "I'm sorry, I don't know what to do about this."

"You don't do anything."

He started in his chair a little. His hand dropped, thudding rather harder than necessary against the table, so he could peer at her over his long, curving nose. (It vaguely reminded her of Snape whenever she saw it, it was even crooked, as though broken long ago and ineptly set.) There was a bit of red in his eyes, she somehow hadn't expected that. "What?"

She shrugged. "You don't do anything about it. What is there to do? Things are as they are. There is nothing to do but be. In time, the nightmares will go away, and it will stay in the past. So don't be sorry, there's nothing to do."

"I just..." Brom let out a long sigh, hands lifting to rub at his face. Somewhat muffled by his own fingers, "I never wanted any of this. I just— It was supposed to be in the south. When the time comes, the elves will move too fast for him, the war _will_ be in the south. It wasn't supposed to— You were supposed to be safe."

His hands fell again to thump against the table, and he smiled over at her. Not a pleasant one, looking far too old, and sad, and tired. The look Dumbledore would have sometimes, the weight of far too many years, far too many tragedies, piling down atop him, so heavy his lips could barely lift themselves. "But here you've already lived through a war, seen horrors no child should be forced to endure alone. And there was nothing I could do about it.

"That damn demon is never wrong," he muttered, voice broken with a dark chuckle. " _Through no fault of my own_ , indeed."

Even assuming she'd correctly understood what he'd said through the missing words she didn't know, Ithera still had absolutely no idea how in hell she was supposed to respond to that.

* * *

[That damn demon is never wrong.] — _In case anyone was wondering, yes, that_ _ **is**_ _supposed to be a reference to Angela._

* * *

 _Yes, I still exist._

 _I recently lost my job for medical reasons, so I've had more time to write lately. I've been too scatterbrained to focus on any particular one, but I thought I'd share what I do have for my poor, neglected readers. A few other fics were posted at the same time as this one. All of them will be updated randomly, as I finish chapters._

 _For this fic specifically, I was stumbling badly on how to handle the last scene of the fourth chapter, but I think I have it now. Should only take one or two writing sessions, actually. So we'll see._

 _~Wings_


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